Contraband
He escaped the smuggling game once. Getting out a second time could cost him everything.
Director
Baltasar Kormákur
Release
16 March 2012
Runtime
110 Minutes
Certificate
15
Synopsis
Chris Farraday used to be one of the best smugglers in the business. Those days are supposed to be over. Chris has traded contraband for a family, leaving his criminal past behind to build a legitimate life with his wife Kate and their children. Then his brother-in-law Andy makes a catastrophic mistake. After botching a drug run for ruthless criminal Tim Briggs, Andy is left owing a debt he can't realistically pay. Briggs doesn't intend to forget it. And when the threats begin reaching Chris's family, the former smuggler realises there is only one way to settle the problem. One more job. Chris puts together a crew and heads for Panama, planning to bring millions of dollars in counterfeit currency back into the United States. But the criminal world Chris remembers has changed. And once the operation starts going wrong, protecting his family means relying on every skill he tried to leave behind.
The Movie Trailer
Chris Farraday knows how international smuggling works because he spent years doing it.
He also knows when to get out.
Now married to Kate and raising a family in New Orleans, Chris has successfully left his old criminal life behind.
His younger brother-in-law Andy hasn't been nearly as fortunate.
Andy becomes involved in a drug-smuggling operation for dangerous criminal Tim Briggs.
When the operation goes wrong, Andy is forced to dump the shipment.
That leaves Briggs without his drugs — and Andy with a debt he cannot repay.
Chris attempts to intervene, but Briggs isn't interested in excuses.
The threats against Andy soon become threats against Kate and Chris's children.
Chris therefore turns to the one thing he promised himself he wouldn't do again.
Smuggling.
With help from his longtime friend Sebastian, Chris assembles a crew and boards a container ship heading to Panama.
The plan is to obtain millions of dollars in counterfeit bills and secretly transport them back into the United States.
But nothing about the operation remains simple for long.
The Panama deal becomes increasingly dangerous.
Police and criminals threaten the shipment.
And back in New Orleans, the people Chris trusted to protect his family may have their own motives.
Chris isn't simply trying to complete another smuggling run.
He's racing to finish the job before the consequences of returning to his old world reach the people he entered it to protect.
ONE LAST RUN
Chris Left the Business — But the Business Never Really Left Him
Chris Farraday didn't abandon smuggling because he couldn't do it anymore.
He walked away because he finally had something more important to protect.
That's what makes returning so dangerous.
The skills are still there.
He understands the routes, the people, and the tricks that let illegal cargo disappear among thousands of legitimate containers.
But every successful step back into that world also takes Chris further from the life he built after leaving it.
This isn't a criminal trying to escape.
It's a man deliberately walking back through a door he fought hard to close.
THE SHIPMENT
Millions in Fake Money Have to Disappear Inside a Very Real Ship
The Panama run isn't simply about getting hold of counterfeit currency.
Chris has to move it.
Container ships provide enormous opportunities for smugglers because legitimate cargo surrounds everything they hide.
But that scale creates its own problems.
Schedules matter.
Inspections matter.
The crew matters.
One mistake can expose the entire operation.
Chris's advantage is experience.
He doesn't need to invent a way through the system.
He needs to remember how he used to beat it.
TRUST
The Most Dangerous Cargo Isn't Sitting Inside a Container
Chris understands criminals.
Betrayal becomes harder to recognise.
The entire operation depends on people trusting one another, even though everyone involved has something to lose.
Andy is desperate.
Briggs is violent.
Chris is trying to protect his family.
And Sebastian appears to be the friend capable of keeping everything together while Chris is away.
But criminal relationships rarely survive pressure cleanly.
As the job begins to collapse, Chris discovers that smuggling something across a border may be far easier than knowing who will still be standing beside him when it arrives.